My client, an experienced advisor, has always been considered the “rainmaker” of his well-established financial planning firm. As he began to consider his retirement, he reached out to a small group of top advisors at his firm about taking over and buying the practice from him. The only problem was that they lacked the level of skill he had for business development and client attraction. That’s where I began my work with them: to support them with a plan for succession, solidifying their branding, and improving their sales skills.

We began by narrowing their focus and defining their niche. This was challenging at first because they feared that by doing so they might lose out on potential clients outside of their niche. However when we looked at their top clients, they realized that one hundred percent were either business professionals themselves or the spouse of a business professional. With that realization, it became easier to own their niche.

From there, the focus was on defining their area of specialization and creating a Branded System. Once these details were in place and they had a clear idea about the overall value they were committed to delivering to their client base; this also shed light on the business model the team of advisors would need to have in place to maintain the sustainability of the company.

Next I assisted the team in creating a marketing plan that included a variety of channels to attract their ideal clients. From there, the focus became implementing the plan consistently and measuring for results. I am also working with the advisors who will be taking over the practice on enhancing their sales skills and closing ratios.

Another area of focus with my work with this team has been transitioning their employee mindset to an entrepreneurial mindset. When hiring new employees, it would be great if they happened to already have that mindset of taking ownership for results, however what I have found is that not everyone is innately “wired” that way. Oftentimes owners of financial advisory practices hire solid employees who can work with clients and deliver effectively, though they might be missing the entrepreneurial mindset which requires the ability to think bigger, take risks, and a drive to produce results. The transition to entrepreneurial mindset includes the willingness to not only see responsibility that is at hand but to take responsibility for the sustainability of the business.

This team is now in a much better position to effectively transition and take ownership and implement their succession plan.

The entrepreneurial mindset requires pushing when there’s a project that needs to be completed, and releasing the “clock in/clock out” mindset. With ownership, there’s a whole new responsibility of management for the functioning of the company, the team, management of finances, clients, and a commitment to maintaining a sustainable business.

Supporting this transition to an entrepreneurial mindset is an area that I find is powerful for financial advisors, and one where I excel at creating results for my clients.

If you have an upcoming business transition or would like to empower your own mindset, I would love to speak with you. Email me today: susan@susandanzig.com

Awareness of our mindset and how we need to improve it is one of the most underutilized areas of how you can succeed (or not) in business and in life. A strong mindset sets you up for success, while a mindset harboring hidden limiting beliefs could be holding you back.

Through my work, I notice that regardless of how successful my clients are, frequently there is a ceiling they hit in their own mindset around what is possible for their next level of success.

This realization led me to investigate how our brains work, and what might be happening with us when our limiting beliefs show up. Through my studies, I realized that this a very common human issue, and not one isolated to my clients. This exploration led me to study neuro linguistic programming (NLP), and ultimately to become a Certified Master Level NLP practitioner. NLP is the study of how the brain works, communication, and personal development. The founders believe there is a connection between how we think, language, and learned behavior and that these patterns can be altered to achieve our goals and live more successful lives. Through my education, I learned processes and tools to support clients with eliminating limiting beliefs quickly and painlessly.

I use NLP to help my clients become more successful and release limiting beliefs that previously held them back from performing at a higher level. I take them through a process in which we clarify what the limiting belief is, and ultimately shift that limiting belief to an empowering belief. The right mindset can make all the difference.

This process around shifting mindset does not require a lot of time. In fact I often help my clients make a huge impact on transforming their limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs in just one session.

Examples of how limiting beliefs could hold you back include:

While you might want to be receiving referrals and introductions, you might feel resistant to or uncomfortable with the process for asking for them

While you might want to work with more affluent clients, you find yourself attracting prospects that are less affluent

While you might think that you have clarity about how you’d like to expand your business, you find yourself producing fewer results than you desire

An example of a limiting belief around onboarding a new client or sales might be: “I don’t want to be seen as a pushy salesman.” A limiting belief around abundance might be: “I’m not worth it, or I’m not going to be able to deliver in a way that’s required.” Another example of a limiting belief I often hear when clients are considering narrowing their niche, is that they fear that they will miss out on opportunity by focusing on a smaller but more defined group.

Often it comes down to limiting beliefs that impact self worth, ability to produce, ability to feel good about onboarding new clients, and the experience around the sales process. Releasing limiting beliefs and replacing them with empowering beliefs gives my clients renewed access to their power on their path to achieving their goals and beyond.

If you are thinking to yourself, “I don’t have any limiting beliefs. I feel strongly in my ability to excel,” let me tell you: we all have limiting beliefs or areas of our mindset that hold us back from experiencing life on a different level. From what I’ve seen, it’s part of the human experience.

Now, I ask you: Where in your mindset do you feel stuck or like you’re holding yourself back from the experience you are truly wanting in your business?

If you’d like to have a conversation with me about how I can support you in transforming your limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs that set you up for success, reach out to me today: susan@susandanzig.com

Unfortunately “sales” has gotten somewhat of a bad reputation in some advisor’s minds. They think of sleazy car salesmen, or pushy obnoxious people coercing others into buying things they do not need or want.

But “sales” isn’t necessarily any of those things. Solid sales skills will help you fill real needs that people have, and help them improve their lives by fulfilling those needs with your services.

If you just focus on a small part of what you can deliver overall, you limit your ability to deliver on other areas where you see value in assisting clients with their overall financial needs. Whether it’s a financial plan, a retirement plan, a college savings plan, investment management services, or long term care insurance, I invite you to clarify your breadth of services as well as how you communicate these services to your clients.

I have clients who run their financial services businesses without much previous training on the sales and marketing side. They know how to provide the services that they offer, but may not have the same level of skill in sales — and their businesses suffer as a result.

Here is a list of five sales strategies you can use to improve your skills:

#1: Start with an enrollment template to help you learn about the desires, challenges, and needs of your prospects. This is used in a prospect meeting to help you provide structure and focus to the conversation.

#2: Once you uncover the above information about your prospect, guide them through your Branded System. This framework describes your client approach clearly and makes it easier for prospects to ultimately say “yes” to being your client. (For more information on a Branded System, please read my previous blog here)

#3: Clarify your value before presenting your fees. It is crucial that you state your fees confidently. Practice in the mirror and in a role playing situation with colleagues, friends, or a coach until you feel comfortable and confident in your presentation. It’s important to practice stating your fees so that when you do so in front of a prospect, your confidence signals that they too should be confident in you and your ability to help them reach their goals. Your confidence also signals that your fees are worth it, and the structure that you are promising. If you are not confident, the reverse can happen, and your prospect may get the sense that your fees are not in line with what they feel you will deliver.

#4. Answer questions that come up, and overcome any objections. If you have not already done so, I invite you to sit down and make a list of potential objections you might encounter during a prospect meeting. Anticipating potential objections is helpful so that you will be ready with solid answers that will make your prospects comfortable and confident that you will help them reach their financial goals. (Ideally, by having created your comprehensive Branded System you might have at least touched on some potential objections.)

Are there any potential objections that would make you uneasy to hear from a potential client? These are important to anticipate so that you can prepare in advance to confidently speak to them and convert that prospect into a client.

#5. Finally, ask for the business. If you are not yet confident about this, practice your close as well. I find that assuming the close is a good way to start this part of the conversation. Rather than “When should we meet again to continue the conversation and determine if you would like to be a client?” which delays the prospect from moving forward, try something like “The next step is …” and moving right into the next step of client engagement, such as scheduling your next meeting to discuss the findings and recommended direction based on your comprehensive financial plan for them.

Now that you have read through this list of strategies, ask yourself if your own sales skills are where you’d like them to be. If you see some room for improvement, I invite you to reach out to me today: susan@susandanzig.com

To do this, draw a large triangle on a piece of paper with the point of the triangle at the top of the page. It should take up the entire piece of paper so that you have room to fill it in with the rest of this exercise. Assuming that you are going to create three tiers in your client delivery model, draw two horizontal lines dividing your triangle into three parts. The top of the triangle represents the revenue from your top clients, while the lower parts represent the revenue from your second and third tiers. Next, determine what client revenue on average you generate from each of the tiers.

For those of you that have an established practice, the next steps are:

Write in the number of clients you have at each level.

Add the number of new clients you’re committed to bringing in over the next twelve months.

Multiply the number of ideal clients at each level by the average client revenue you would bring in.

Add up the overall revenue that is represented in this revenue pyramid.

Now draw another line in your revenue pyramid underneath your third tier. Below this line would represent what you offer in order to support your client attraction process, such as: presentations, client events, informational seminars, or a free report or newsletter. Newsletters are great opportunities for you to stay connected to your clients and prospects and potentially connect with new potential ideal clients. What else might you include at this level to support awareness about you and your practice?

This revenue pyramid can serve as a great visual aid to motivate you in the direction of your goals. I invite you to keep it somewhere you will see it frequently (though ensure that it is out of sight from clients and prospects).

From here I invite you to ask yourself these questions:

How does that number feel?

Do you feel positive about it?

Does it feel realistic and doable?

Given your revenue pyramid, how many clients in each tier do you want to attract in the next 30 days? What do you need to do differently this month to reach that goal? What are you going to do differently today?

If completing this exercise and creating your own revenue pyramid has inspired you and you feel ready to start attracting more business to your financial services planning practice, reach out to me today: susan@susandanzig.com

Are you confident that you are attracting the greatest level of profitability possible? If you feel there is room for improvement, I invite you to consider your client tier structure and something I call a “revenue pyramid.” I will cover how to create and think through a tier structure first, and in my next blog post I will cover how to use your tier structure to support your desired revenue by using your revenue pyramid.

The process of creating a tier structure will support you to strategically and consciously choose the tier (or tiers) of service that you would like to offer. For those of you who have felt overwhelmed by trying to deliver the same level of service to all of your clients regardless of the revenue their accounts generate, this process will shed some light on how you might differentiate your service model and make sure it supports you in growing your business while conserving your time.

Let’s start with your top tier clients.

First, write a complete list of all of the services that you offer your top tier clients. Include everything in your highest tier of service that your clients need to fulfill their goals. Also consider any extra items (services or extra client support) that you’d like to include for your top tier clients.

Here is an example of what your list of services for your top clients might look like:

A customized financial plan

Portfolio analysis and recommended changes to support goal fulfillment

Ongoing portfolio monitoring

Tax planning support

Income distribution

Estate planning input

Meetings with client’s other professional advisors – such as CPAs, estate planning attorneys, or tax attorneys

Quarterly reviews

Your top tier clients have more to manage so naturally they will need more of your time. However, you must set up your lower tiers so that you are delivering what they need to achieve their goals as well.

Now determine at what investment level your clients will need to be in order to be one of your top tier clients and benefit from all that you offer. For example, for many advisors their top tier clients have investable assets at the $1MM+ level; for others it is at $500k-1MM; for others $250k-$500k. (Typically the top tier doesn’t go below $100k.)

Now for the next step, decide how many other levels of service you want to offer your clients. Are you only going to accept top tier clients and offer one level of service? Or would you like to offer a second or third tier as well? Most of the financial services professionals that I work with have 2 or 3 tiers of service. With that in mind, let’s now create the second tier in your revenue pyramid.

What is the range of investment that you would like to use for your second tier of service? It might be at $500k, $250k, or $100k. To help you define your second tier of offerings, consider what you will remove from your top tier list of services. For example, the quarterly meetings offered for the first tier may be annual reviews only in the second.

Next, create your third tier of services. What is the range of investment tier for this group? Given that revenue level, what would make sense to remove or adjust from what you included for the second tier group?

For example, with the tax and financial advisory practice example, perhaps you remove the savings for tax preparation altogether. They can absolutely still have you prepare their taxes, however they would pay full price for the add-on in this tier. They can have you create a financial plan although again, they would pay full price. You can meet with their other service professionals as well, like tax or estate planning attorneys, however they would pay your hourly rate for you to attend these meetings. Your fee would not be automatically included in this tier’s services.

I recommend keeping all of your services on one list so that your clients can see everything that you offer; this is a great sales tool. For example, for those who have a tax and financial advisory practice, you might include tax services in your first tier. For your second tier clients, you could offer savings on the hourly rate that you might typically charge for the service. The third tier would pay your hourly rate for the service with no savings. Make sure to clarify the regular fee as well as the discounted fee so that clients are aware of the savings they receive at different levels of service.

Once your tier structure is complete the next step will be to use it to create your revenue pyramid, which I will cover in my next blog post.

If you have any questions or feel your financial services planning business could benefit from support from an expert business coach, reach out to me today: susan@susandanzig.com

Are you confident that prospective clients understand the full benefit and outcome of working with you as their financial services professional? One way to encourage idealprospects to convert into ideal clients is by using what I call a “Branded System.”

A Branded System is your structured process that ultimately delivers the outcome you’re committed to for your ideal clients. Your Branded System does not include your sales process, although it does support and enhance it.

The #1 benefit of a Branded System is that it helps you clearly describe and articulate your services to your ideal clients. Once you have gone through my process to create your own, you will be more personally grounded in the way you describe your services, which will make them easier for prospects to understand. A strong Branded System will encourage your prospects to become your clients!

How to Create a Branded System:

I invite you to begin by thinking about the ultimate outcome your clients experience with regards to your services. This could be consolidating their assets into as few accounts as possible, analyzing all of their investments, or thinking through their financial concerns and helping them determine solutions in alignment with their goals. This exercise will help you create your Branded System.

To get started, “zoom out” as much as possible on the overall experience your clients have working with you. Think as broadly as possible, and write down what you come up with.

Once you have an idea of the overall client experience, think about the absolute first step in your client process. An example might be meeting with your client and having a conversation about what they are currently facing and what they want to achieve. Record this as well.

Continue the process and continue making notes of what you come up with in a detailed way. What is the next step? This could be gathering all of the client’s financial data. Continue repeating this process until you have outlined, in detail, all of the steps in your client experience until you reach the original ultimate outcome that your clients have working with you.

By the time you are done, you should have a very clear outline of your process. For marketing purposes, your Branded System will have a certain number of steps. The key is to keep the number relatively small (between 7-9 steps). If you have many more than that, look at them and consider where you can group them together into fewer steps.

How might you use your Branded System?

1. During your prospect meeting. It serves as a marketing tool both for your prospects to see your process, and for you as a visual aid to help you keep the conversation focused.

2. During client meetings. It is a great way to educate your clients about the full range of services you provide. On many occasions, I have heard clients share their frustration of their clients having gone elsewhere for services or to buy products that they didn’t know their own financial services professional also provided, like life insurance, long term care insurance, or 401k rollovers.

3. In your marketing materials

4. On your website

If you would like assistance creating or refining your own Branded System, email me today: susan@susandanzig.com

As you already know, effective branding makes attracting new ideal clients easier. Along with your business name, your slogan and tagline are important pieces of branding that should quickly and efficiently convey information to a potential ideal client.

A well-crafted tagline is an opportunity to convey additional information about your client experience that is not typically included in the business name. Though many people get the concept of taglines and slogans confused, a tagline is very different from a slogan. While a slogan succinctly describes what you do and for whom, a tagline should describe a feeling or potential benefit your clients get from engaging in your services. (If you need a refresher, click here for my previous post on creating a slogan.)

Take this American Express tagline: “Don’t leave home without it.” This implies that American Express will be there for you, that you can count on them. Allstate’s tagline “You’re in good hands,” and Capital One’s “What’s in your wallet?” impart similar connotations and feelings related to the desired client experience.

When you create your tagline keep in mind your ideal client experience that you’d like to relay to your clients and prospects. I invite you to try this exercise:

Step 1:

Define the desired client experience. From a company perspective, what are you committed to providing, achieving, or producing for your clients? What are you most inspired about that you deliver for your clients? What are your clients biggest needs?

An example: your client experience might be helping business owners with the structure to achieve financial success and helping them best manage their money while investing for the future.

Step 2:

Clarify the results your clients experience. This might include support staying on track for a college savings plan, retirement savings, financial milestones like buying a vacation home, or having a legacy plan in place to take care of their family and organizations they are committed to.

Step 3:

What are your clients most grateful for with regards to your services? This an important step because it will help you get to the more emotional perspective of this process.

Here are a few questions to consider: What do you hear from your clients about your services? What do they thank you for, and when? Is it after you’ve reviewed your comprehensive financial plan and they have clarity about their financial future? Is it after you’ve had an annual review with them, and you’ve gone over reports and answered all their questions about where they are in relation to their goals and any potential changes they should make?

Step 4:

Put the pieces together from the previous three steps in a way that flows and speaks to the full experience of what you’re committed to delivering as your overall client experience.

For example: if you have a financial services company focused on supporting women entrepreneurs with financial planning and investment management, a potential tagline could be: Helping women achieve their dreams.

By getting to the emotional heart of your client experience, potential ideal clients will more easily understand the benefits of what you offer and feel more compelled to hire you. On the other hand, a weak or lackluster tagline is a missed opportunity to attract more ideal clients and revenue to your financial services business.

While I have broken down the process of creating your own tagline into a simple one, it can be hard to come up with something impactful and powerful on your own. If you would like help crafting or redesigning a tagline for your financial services business, I invite you to reach out to me today. I would love to talk with you. Email me at susan@susandanzig.com.

It’s critical to have a personalized marketing plan to clarify how your bold goal can be achieved. Your personalized marketing plan takes into account who you want to attract as new ideal clients, what their demographics are, and where and how you can reach them in order to support your pipeline.

How to Create a Personalized Marketing Plan:

1. Growth is one of the key desired outcomes of a marketing plan. As a first step you want to define additional goals of your marketing plan, and be as specific as possible. Clarify how many ideal clients you want to attract and 3-5 marketing channels that will support the attraction of those clients.

2. Determine which marketing channels or avenues will attract clients. Some of the most effective marketing channels for financial services professionals include client referrals, professional referrals, digital marketing, client events, speaking opportunities, and networking.

Look back to what has been most successful in the past, (for example, client referrals or professional referrals?) and make sure to include those areas, as well as what’s next in the marketing plan to truly create the results you’re looking for within these channels. For example, a digital marketing plan should encompass a website, social media campaign, and strategy around messaging that will align with your brand to attract and maintain ideal clients. Pick which marketing channels you’d like to focus on for the year.

For senior level advisors with larger practices, typically you already have an abundance of ideal clients in your book of business. If that’s you, the client referral channel is a great place to start or enhance your marketing plan. Here are some important points to consider:

Are you strategizing about which top clients are raving fans and open to referring you business? Are you setting up opportunities with these top clients where they can invite friends or associates to meet you? A few examples of events that easily facilitate referrals include a milestone birthday, anniversary, or retirement party. Another effective example: if your top clients are golf enthusiasts, you could invite one of them to invite two of their friends to a round of golf. The people that you’d want them to invite would also be golf enthusiasts who they think might benefit from your services at this time.

Are you asking for introductions from your top clients and taking steps to follow up and connect with anyone they introduce to you?

Another channel for seasoned advisors is the professional referral channel. These are other professionals serving your ideal clients in a different capacity, like estate planning attorneys, CPAs, or even golf instructors. Typically with the professional referral channel, it’s a two-way referral partnership. The professional referral partners you want to attract are seasoned enough that you can rest assured that you’ll be referring your clients to people who can be counted on to deliver (as well as also interested in building their practices).

An easy place to look for people to connect with are your top clients. Which other service professionals are your top clients utilizing and raving about? These are the individuals you want to build relationships with. There are a few ways to find out who these potential referral partners might be. If you don’t already inquire about their CPA and estate planning attorney and any other service professionals on your client intake form, I invite you to add that to the information you collect at the beginning of the engagement. You could also send out a separate letter letting them know you’re interested in creating resources for clients and asking if they have any recommendations with regard to their CPA or estate planning attorney. Once you get recommendations (and ask permission to contact their referrals), contact those professionals and schedule a meeting to learn more about their practice and determine whether or not they might be a good referral partner.

3. Figure out when you will implement each channel. For example, if you are doing an event to support client referrals, figure out in advance how you will support the event, such as sending out an email blast to your clients, or promoting it ahead of time on social media. Build a marketing calendar so you’re being proactive and not missing opportunities to promote your business.

4. Take stock and pay attention to what’s working and what isn’t. Consistent tracking is critical to maintaining focus and producing results. Oftentimes when people get busy, tracking is one of the first tasks that is left for “later,” though often later becomes much later, like the end of the year. Ideally you should be tracking weekly to keep a good pulse on what’s working and where you might want to make changes with your plan to support your desired results.

5. If you would like to get a jumpstart on this in a dynamic and empowering environment, sign up for my 2-day event Business Success Intensive for Financial Advisors on September 21st-22nd, 2017. In just 2 days you’ll learn how to increase your visibility in the marketplace, create a personalized marketing plan, attract high net worth clients with greater ease, overcome your business challenges, and receive high-level input to set you up for success.

How do you feel about your financial planning business right now, in this moment?

Ask yourself: are you inspired?

If you are, bold goals consistently inspire you to take action, and you’re hitting milestones on your way to reaching those goals. You’re creating a momentum, and attracting your ideal prospects. You’re excited, and looking ahead at what’s next. Doesn’t that feel great?

Unfortunately, though, we can lose our sense of inspired action. If that has happened, you might be noticing that your business is not growing as you would like it to, or maybe you’re at a standstill and not sure how to move forward.

If you’re not in a state of inspired action, take a pulse on these points:

1 – Are you burned out? Have you been working hard and not giving yourself adequate breaks to nurture balance in your life? Burnout can negatively impact your inspiration around your goals, and affects many extremely driven professionals, for whom it can be hard to “turn off” and take time for ourselves. However it’s critical if you want your financial services business to be at it’s best, because your business suffers when you’re not at your best. Being at your best requires balance, because it keeps us feeling inspired, energetic, and driven to think creatively, act decisively, and continue working toward goals.

If you’ve been working very hard without breaks to rejuvenate and recharge, I invite you to look at your calendar right now (seriously, open it up right now) to see when you can block time to nurture yourself. This could be a day at the spa or a long weekend in Tahoe, or even a staycation where you’re doing something relaxing at home. Taking a fun family vacation can feel more like work than relaxing — make sure to carve out “me time” as well as family time. (And remember that “me time” means active relaxation, not just lying catatonic in front of the TV bingeing on Netflix!) Just knowing that you have something booked on the calendar to look forward to can lessen feelings of burnout.

2 – If you’re not burned out and have been doing a good job of taking care of yourself but feel that something is missing in your commitment to your goals, it’s time to take a step back. Have you set bold goals that you were initially motivated and inspired by? For example if you set goals in January and it’s now August and you haven’t taken significant action, it could be time to reevaluate how much you care to to see those specific goals unfold. What I have found is that if our goals don’t excite us, we won’t maintain intention to reach them. When there’s no fire burning, implementation and action are limited.

3 – If your goals still seem appropriate but you haven’t taken action, ask yourself what’s missing from your current reality that would get you into a state of inspired action?

Do you need to recommit and carve out time in your calendar to take the action that supports achieving your bold goals?

Is your bandwidth simply at its max? Maybe you need extra support to see your goals come to fruition. For example, if your goal was to get consistent blog posts up on your website, but you’ve found you don’t have time to write those posts, who might you delegate that task to? I invite you to look for items on your task list that you can delegate to free up your time.

Do you need accountability or help from a coach with creating a more focused plan of action? This is often the point at which my clients reach out for help, because staying committed and following through on bold goals can be challenging when you are your sole support structure to make things happen. I love helping people create and achieve their boldest goals, and if this is an area you’d like support with, I invite you to consider the expert Coaching Programs that I offer. With my 20 years of experience and industry expertise, I help my clients achieve their boldest goals. I work with clients one-on-one, in small groups, or can even set up a one-day intensive built exclusively for you. Reach out to me today at susan@susandanzig.com, and you’ll soon be on your way to achieving the results you dream of!

We all know that integrity is crucial in business. How we regularly act, treat others, respect ourselves, and show up in general sets the foundation of who we are and signals to others whether or not we can be counted on and trusted.

Two questions that are important to ask ourselves are:

Is your sense of integrity accurately reflected in how you show up?

And do you produce what you say you’re going to produce?

Why does this matter? Showing up consistently with integrity is one of the easiest ways to boost your brand. Have integrity, and do what you say you will. Be professional. Be early. Take care of people. When you do that consistently, people get to know you as that person they can count on to show up, to deliver what you say you will — which is, after all, why they’ve hired you.

To help you consider your integrity with regard to your business, here are some questions to consider:

When you think about how you conduct your business and how you represent your brand, do you feel confident and empowered? Or do you lack confidence (or maybe even integrity) and hope others can’t tell?

If you’re detecting that you have some room to improve in this area, here are a few examples of ways you might boost your confidence and sense of integrity:

Consider your outer appearance. Is how you dress sending the right signals about who you are, who you serve, and how you feel about yourself?

Do a quick brand audit. Is your branding consistent between what clients see and what the community sees?

Do you consistently show up on time (or early) for all of your meetings?

Can people count on you as someone to deliver solid professional advice?

Are you up to speed on how to address changes in the marketplace?

Mindset and confidence level can suffer when a gap exists between what you want to show to others and what you’re actually doing in reality. This might come from doing things that aren’t in line with our sense of integrity, like showing up late or unprepared to a meeting.

Showing up late one time doesn’t mean you’ve lost your integrity, though consistently missing appointments or deadlines sends a message about who you are, your values, and your priorities to others. If you’re consistently late or unprepared, you might be sending a message to others that you don’t value their time (even if you do!). And not only does it send a message to others, but we eventually internalize that message, which can affect our mindset and confidence level.

Simply having too much on your plate can also detract from your ability to deliver, like unforeseen events in your personal life that take your attention, time, and energy away from your business.

But life happens! As human beings, sometimes we fall down in this regard. It’s not the end of the world. But if a ball does get dropped and you pick it back up quickly, there’s likely little or no harm done.

How can you get back on track quickly? Re-prioritize and set up a game plan to move forward in a positive direction. This can be relatively simple to turnaround if you’re aware of what is going on and are willing to be honest with others when mistakes are made. To help you recalibrate, try to focus on what’s going right. What are you doing well? What is the next right action to take?

Showing up with integrity is something I have worked on for my own business, both by consistently showing up to network and speak in front of my ideal clients, but also how I serve my existing clients. I’ve made it a priority to consistently be on time for meetings, be present and prepared, and to provide quality meeting experiences. Most importantly, I’ve worked hard to show that I consistently deliver results.

This is one of the keys to success in developing relationships with your clients, prospects, and center of influence that leads to respect and an image of you as a person of integrity. Mirror those attributes consistently and over time, people understand that’s who you are. This is a great foundation to set yourself up to win.

Building trust and integrity is not complicated. We do it by showing up. By delivering what we say we will. By acting with integrity. And when people know they can count on you, they like and trust you more.This means better client relationships, more referrals, and a stronger and more prosperous business.

If you’d like to ensure that your brand reflects integrity, reach out to me today. Email me at susan@susandanzig.com.